Review: Timber Rattle – Timber Rattle (Stoned to Death, Feb 21)

The Ithaca-based doom folk collective Timber Rattle’s self titled cassette is dark, hypnotic, and apocalyptic. Constructed upon the simple combination of acoustic guitar, synth drones, and pastoral vocal layers, it’s an album that reaches something far beyond its humble beginnings. Timber Rattle is definitely repetitive, but not to a fault; instead, the focus on atmosphere rather than significant progression induces an almost trance-like state. The lyrics are unintelligible for the most part, but according to the band they are written about “land and bodies and life and death and magic and language and ritual and myth and space and cycles and animals and plants and food and poison,” a range of subjects that mirrors the music’s raw, primal nature (interview w/ Potlista). And even if the lyrics are hard to make out, the vocals possess incredible power just from their deep, primordial sonority. Yes, there is a clear oppressiveness in this music, but it’s somehow soothing, and seems to celebrate the unspoken energy contained in the things we cannot control.

Join me in seeing the band live, along with DREKKA and Dr. Zapata, at the Fuse Factory this Saturday (link to event).

Blogroll

About the Site

Welcome to Noise Not Music. Here you’ll find reviews of recent albums, various essays, weekly mixes, and posts about events.

I tend to focus on stuff that resides in the experimental or avant-garde realm of music, but nothing is off limits. If you have an album you’d like me to review, please email me or comment on a post. When I say nothing is off limits, I really mean it. However, I only review albums I like, and the “reviews” themselves are more intended to encourage discovery rather than to express my personal opinion.

Currently the site is written by just me, Jack, but I’m open to expanding in the future. If you’d like to write a guest review or essay (or anything, I’m not picky), just let me know.